


Best part of a bad day is knowin' it's okay...

by Ithinkwehaveanemergency



Series: You're What I Want... [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21952168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithinkwehaveanemergency/pseuds/Ithinkwehaveanemergency
Summary: Derek and Liam's relationship isn't easy.  But the good ones never are.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Derek Hale
Series: You're What I Want... [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1329335
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Best part of a bad day is knowin' it's okay...

“I don't think we should see each other anymore.”

Derek freezes at Liam's words. He puts the water glass in his hand down and turns to lean against the counter, arms crossing over his chest.

Liam is standing in the entrance to Derek's kitchen. His backpack is on his shoulders, and he stands there barefoot in his running shorts and hoodie. Derek had heard him get out of bed a few minutes ago and expected the younger werewolf to come downstairs complaining about not wanting to go to work or maybe even wrap his strong arms around Derek's waist and coax him into making out for a bit before he absolutely had to leave to go get ready for work.

What Derek hadn't been expecting, what Derek had foolishly stopped expecting months ago, was for Liam to say those words.

“If that's what-” Derek tries, but he chokes on the words and he has to look away from Liam. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Liam doesn't speak, but Derek can hear his breath catch. Seconds later, the strong scent of anger and despair fills the room, making Derek look up again.

Liam turns away before Derek can make eye contact, but the older wolf can smell the salt of tears in the air.

Before he can think what it all means, Liam is out the door, barely pausing to pick up his sneakers on the way out.

*****

Derek hears the door open and shut with a specific passive aggressiveness that could only be one person's.

He smells that person's perfume seconds later.

“You don't have a key to my place.”

“My husband has to key to all places, Derek.” Lydia responds.

“I _hate_ that guy.” Derek sighs and sits up from where he had been stretched out on the couch, reading. He sets the book down on the arm of the couch and stands to take a look at the just-barely-noticably pregnant banshee. “He doesn't deserve you.”

“No one does.” She smiles crookedly. She holds her arms out for a hug and Derek obliges. His entire body warms at the smell of pack, and of the faint heartbeat of the newest member of their large clan. The warmth is cut short as Lydia rushes to the point. “But, why don't you tell me why my favorite werewolf hasn't left his house other than to come to work over the past week and a half?”

“I don't know.” Derek shrugs as they part, but Lydia’s frown simply turns into a glare at his noncommittal response. Derek rolls his eyes, feeling every bit as immature as he knows he must look at that moment. “I mean… we broke up? I guess?”

Lydia punches him in the shoulder and it surprises him enough that he winces.

“You _guess_?!”

“He said we shouldn't see each other anymore!” Derek squeaks out defensively, shying away from the woman who looks about ready to banshee-scream him right out the window.

“And what did _you_ say?” Lydia narrows her eyes, as if she already knows the answer. Derek doesn't even think Liam told her, he just has been convinced for years that Lydia Martin-Stilinski knows everything.

Liam always said it was part of her banshee powers, but she suppresses it so that she's not perpetually disappointed by the dumb men she's chosen to love and surround herself with.

Like Derek is doing right now. He turns away and sighs.

“I said ‘okay.’”

Derek cringes visibly, expecting a physical or verbal onslaught of some sort. Instead, he's met with silence. After it goes on too long, he turns to look at Lydia.

She's smiling at him softly.

It looks a lot like pity.

Lydia turns to the couch and sits down in the corner. She looks up at Derek with her kind, tired eyes and pats her thighs.

Derek all but drags his bare feet along the hardwood floor toward the couch. He settles on his back, just like he had been before Lydia came, except his head is now in her lap and she's stroking his shaggy, overgrown mane in a motherly manner. He immediately feels the need to cry.

So, he does.

Derek curls on his side, turning his body away from the back of the couch and pressing his face into Lydia's knee, knowing that even if she couldn’t hear his breath go ragged, she would feel his tears through the fabric of her tights.

“Oh, sweetie.” Lydia coos, and he can hear her voice crack a little as she rubs his back with one hand and pushes his hair back from his face with the other. “I got you, babe. It's okay. It's gonna be okay, I promise. Everything will be _fine_.”

Derek lets out an audible sob at that and finally lets himself just feel like _shit_.

He feels like shit for how he's treated Liam for the past year or more, keeping him at a distance, never telling him how he feels, never letting either of them get too comfortable.

He feels like shit for how he let Liam go that morning, purposefully trying to make the younger man think that Derek didn't care if he stayed or if he went, when they both know that he does. _(Or at least, Derek thought they both knew.)_

He feels like shit for dragging his poor emotional, pregnant, wonderful, selfless friend, _who happens to be Liam's boss_ , into this mess. And now she's crying, and Derek's crying, and Liam is probably done crying over all of it because Derek has been _shitty_ . Liam deserves _so much better_.

They stay like that until Derek gets a bit of it out of his system. Or at least enough to talk about it.

“I didn't want him to leave.” He whispers.

“I know, babe.” Lydia whispers back. “But you didn't say that to him, and you never made him feel any different. And so he did. And it's up to you whether or not he stays gone. Because we both know that he loves you. He would come back in an instant.”

Derek doesn't respond. He thinks he might start another round of tears if he tries.

“But we _both_ know he just deserves better, Derek. That's why you let him go. But you're an emotionally repressed idiot, Derek Hale. You did _not_ have to let him go. **_You_ ** can give him better.” Lydia tilts his head so that he has to look up at her. He still sees kindness and love in her eyes. It makes him feel like she believes that he can.

“I guess I don't have a choice. I can't stand to see him unhappy.” Derek swallows down the lump in his throat. It tastes a lot like pride. “And don't think I could stand to see him happy with someone else.”

“So what else is there?” Lydia shrugs at him and her smile widens.

They stay like that until Stiles calls and yells at him for stealing his wife and then shows up two minutes later with Thai food from Derek’s favorite restaurant.

Stiles pulls Derek into a hug that feels so all-consuming and loving that it knocks the breath out of his lungs.

Derek almost starts crying again when he realizes what great friends he has and how much he missed them when he had moved a couple hours away to _distance_ himself from Beacon Hills. Then, he shakes his head about what an oblivious idiot he's been about almost everything he's done since Liam walked into his work over a year ago, celebrating his college graduation.

He stops eating and looks up at Stiles and Lydia with a shy smile.

“I love Liam.” He says, incredulous. “I’m… I'm in love with him.”

Stiles raises an eyebrow at Derek and then his face turns into a mocking look of sympathy.

“Oh, _sweetie_ .” Stiles nods and coos in a perfect imitation of his wife, whose jaw drops in offense. “We _know_.”

When Lydia punches Stiles in the shoulder, Derek is the one wearing the look of sympathy.

They all laugh about it over dessert.

*****

Liam works for an up-and-coming tech company. He sits a desk all day and stews in his own misery, with the exception of when he sees Lydia walk into the room.

Lydia walks into the room more often than not the past couple weeks.

She makes up reasons to scold him or ask for his help or tell him he can do better. He knows what she's trying to do. He loves her for it, and sometimes it's hard not to just give in and hug her at work, surrounding himself with pack and home and love.

He's trying very hard to focus on a report when his office door opens for the first time that day, and he responds before even trying to register the intruder.

"Lydia, I can't talk right now, I need to finish your rep-"

His breath catches on a gasp and his fingers stop typing as soon as the scent hits him.

"Hey, Liam."

The twenty-four year old werewolf turns to face the door slowly, looking up into speckled green eyes. His gaze drifts from gorgeous eyes to tousled hair and scruffy cheeks.

"You look like shit." Liam exhales, his eyes coming back to meet Derek's. Laughter lines crease the older werewolf's skin around his eyes, and Liam feels his heartbeat trip and stumble at the sight. He shakes his head and sits back in his desk chair. "Sorry, uh… I didn't mean that. What are you doing here, Derek?"

"Uh, lunch. I brought-" Derek swallows nervously and holds up a brown paper bag from Nobby's. He looks so timid that Liam wants to smile and tease him just to get a ribbing in return. Liam doesn't, so Derek just shrugs and looks away. "I brought Lydia lunch. She had a craving, and I know how much you love- And well, I just couldn't go without-"

"Derek, I have a lot of work to do." Liam clears his throat and nods weakly to his computer.

Derek sucks in a breath and shakes his head quickly. He steps forward toward the desk and Liam flinches unconsciously at the proximity. Liam regrets it immediately when the color drains out of Derek's face and he looks down, dejected.

"Yeah, I'll uh…" Derek sets the bag down on the far corner of the desk and backs up toward the door. "Good luck. And uh, don't forget to eat. You think better when you're not hungry."

Derek turns and shuts the door without another looks back. Liam stares at the bag from one of his favorite sandwich places.

He's flooded with memories of sitting across from Derek in the small restaurant, laughing loudly and picking off each others plates. He thinks of nights at home, _Derek's_ home, finishing up last minute project reports and eating takeout that Derek had picked up without Liam even asking, just to make sure that he wouldn't work straight through dinner.

Liam drags the bag closer after a few minutes, both salivating and sick to his stomach.

He pulls his phone out and dials a familiar contact, relief filling his chest a gruff voice picks up on the first ring.

_"Liam? Is everythi-"_

"Hey, Der?" Liam cuts him off quickly. "Would you want to maybe have dinner tonight? Catch up? Talk? I could bring over Thai."

Derek doesn't respond for a second, and Liam wonders if he read the kind gesture wrong. He wonders if Derek really just did think of him absently while doing an errand for Lydia. He wonders if he was right to walk away and give up on the thing he's wanted most in his short-but-traumatic twenty-four years of life.

"Thai?" Derek's voice crackles through the phone. He sounds just as hopeful as Liam feels, and it makes everything a little clearer again.

"Yeah." Liam snorts and swallows the lump in his throat "Don't worry. I'll go the extra couple miles to Mekkala."

"That, uh…" Derek laughs softly on the other end of the phone. "God, that sounds great, Liam. I'd really… I'd love that."


End file.
